Psi World Slam

I ran session three of Psi World tonight. The PCs are all Psis (but no precogs!) who have been drawn to the small town of Enclave after a teenager with psionic abilities allegedly blew up the heads of seven people in a hospital. Gerry Muntrell, the teen, is said to have "went crazy" and killed several of his friends and a few doctors during a perfectly safe and routine medical study.

But there's more to this story. The players decided Gerry was innocent and needed to be freed from his prison in the basement of the Enclave Memorial Hospital. Upon discovering a sub-basement level reminiscent of a James Bond villain's lair, their suspicions may be proven correct.

Tonight they busted Gerry out and nobody got killed. It was a stealth mission and was successful, with the alarms going off just as they made their getaway with the young man.

I am off-book a little bit with the setting. I set my game early in the timeline so that the PCs are basically among the first generation of Psis to come out. Corporations run the world through a quasi-government known as IPEG (International Protectorate of Economic Growth). Many corporations are at the heart of IPEG and one of them, the Ranseur Pharmaceutical Company, is somehow associated with the hospital. Is it possible that the "special services" wing of the hospital is conducting illegal experiments on people with psionic abilities?

We're going to find out.

So far the system isn't getting in the way. Many people said this game's mechanics were a nightmare. I agree they are obtuse, but they aren't impenetrable. I have yet to run into a situation where I need to make a ruling and I don't have the tools to do it. The Attribute Saving Throws alone pretty much ensure that won't happen. But, to be fair, the game has been mostly about investigation and dialog and lots and lots of analysis paralysis (my Monday night friends are really good at going over ideas and plans for what might be called a minute or two). We have had at least one real combat and a few uses of psi powers. But I think we've had more skill checks and ASTs that anything.

Enjoying this old game quite a bit. It was a sudden move to run it and I'm glad I made that move. Especially since the group is really into it and Dyson Logos is even working on some super secret sauce related to the game as a result. Hmmmmm.